So numerous were the fugitives from the Palatinate that the name of Palatine came to be applied in general to German refugees, from whatever region.

This migration of the German sects (to be distinguished from the later migration from the established Lutheran and Reformed churches) furnished the material for that curious "Pennsylvania Dutch" population which for more than two centuries has lain encysted, so to speak, in the body politic and ecclesiastic of Pennsylvania, speaking a barbarous jargon of its own, and refusing to assimilate with the surrounding people.
It was the rough estimate of Dr.Franklin that colonial Pennsylvania was made up of one third Quakers, one third Germans, and one third miscellaneous.

The largest item under this last head was the Welsh, most of them Quakers, who had been invited by Penn with the promise of a separate tract of forty thousand acres in which to maintain their own language, government, and institutions.

Happily, the natural and patriotic longing of these immigrants for a New Wales on this side the sea was not to be realized.

The "Welsh Barony" became soon a mere geographical tradition, and the whole strength of this fervid and religious people enriched the commonwealth.[118:1] Several notable beginnings of church history belong to the later part of the period under consideration.
An interesting line of divergence from the current teachings of the Friends was led, toward the end of the seventeenth century, by George Keith, for thirty years a recognized preacher of the Society.